


"Care Package for Captain Rogers?"

by applepieandgunpowder



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff and Crack, M/M, Male Friendship, emotional Steve, maybe love?, tbh this can be read as either friend!stucky or boyfriends!stucky, we love sensitive boys that love each other!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 02:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18378872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applepieandgunpowder/pseuds/applepieandgunpowder
Summary: I wrote this in May 2018, and I've been sitting on it for ages now. It's very much inspired by a specific, real thing. There's a famous deli in New York, Katz's, that has a sign: "Send a salami to your boy in the army!" They've definitely had it for ages. It's on their promotional signs. It's a Thing.This lead to a question: Has anyone ever tried to send Steve a salami from Katz's?Then, a better question: What was his reaction when Bucky did?





	"Care Package for Captain Rogers?"

Steve sat in the nondescript bunker, somewhere in the middle of the alps. He didn’t really care anymore, they all looked the same and at this point he was ready for the damn war to be over. Getting trotted out like a show pony wasn’t what he wanted when he agreed to Dr. Erskine’s experiment, but neither was the isolation that came with being out in the field in places no one else could go. He hadn’t slept much; not that he really needed to, but it’s the principle of the thing that mattered. His last shower was lord knows how many weeks ago— the days blended together into one long series of fighting, resting, and traveling. The cuts from his last mission were finally healing, but he knew that as soon as they were done he’d be called away again. That’s how it always was. Just when he thought he could breathe, something came up.

That isn’t to say he didn’t want to fight—all he ever wanted was to defend the innocent, the indefensible. It was just taxing work. Tonight, Steve was just that: Steve. The uniform sat on the other side of the room, crumpled with rejection yet somehow holding enough dirt to retain some of its shape. Lacking armor, Steve sat on his cot, massaging his shoulders (it still hadn’t recovered from his latest push through a steel door). The breath left his body slowly, audibly slipping out like the sighs of a creaky hinge. He didn’t mean to make the sound, it was a fault of moving. He was only twenty but he felt decades older, the weight of responsibility pressing down on him like Atlas’ globe. Tonight, though, he finally didn’t feel like a Sisyphusean hero, doomed to fight the same battles day after day. Tonight, he just felt like Steve. And that was a rare blessing.

He slowly sat up, fingers reaching tentatively for the sketchbook hidden in the folds of his pack. The book filled his hand, swimming in flesh and fingers. Steve still was getting used to his new size, the way his hand dwarfed all it touched. Yet the book was at home in his hands, a piece that had been swapped for a shield and was now whole again. As if drawing power from the fragile notebook in his hands, he rummaged quickly for a pencil. There was no way to know when he’d be shipped off. Another officer with another bad haircut giving him directions to another snow covered hill.

Just as his fingers found the thin, short pencil, the iron door groaned open. Steve froze as the ominous clang echoed through the space, the first sound made by something else in hours. Footsteps approached, who they belonged to Steve didn’t think mattered. He didn’t raise his eyes to look. The closer the person came, the slower they moved–probably a private, they were the only ones intimidated by him anymore–causing Steve to raise his head from his lap.

The poor private stood before Steve and stared, wary and shy. Unsure what to make of the various stories he had been told about the great “Star Spangled Man with a plan” no doubt. No matter how hard he tried, Steve couldn’t kill the rumor that he’d punched the real Hitler in the face. Fear wafted of the private in waves that Steve could almost touch. This made him smile; he never wanted to scare his soldiers. He leaned back against the wall, gently placing his sketchbook on his lap and removing his hand from his pack. He sat with his body open, a saint at an altar waiting for acceptance. Some movements are in your bones, and this one was carved in Steve’s to the marrow.

“Soldier,” Steve nodded in greeting, “where are they sending me this time?” He fought to restrain the exhaustion that clamored to escape his open mouth. He had learned once it escaped its prison there was no hope of returning it.

“Oh! No where yet sir- er, Captain Am-Rogers.” The private stammered. Like all the others, it took effort to separate the man from the mask.

Steve smiled and reclined even further on his meager cot. “Well, that’s certainly a relief. What’s your name Soldier?”

Steve’s loose smile fulfilled its intended purpose, the private’s shoulders dropping a fraction of an inch and his posture relaxing. Steve was nothing if not good at his job.

“Toby, sir. Toby Martin.”

“Well, Private Martin, if they aren’t shipping me off then what is it they want?” Steve’s brow furrowed with confusion, his expression still open. He didn’t ask to be treated like an Alpha, he never was one.

Private Martin finally released the last of his tension, fully assured that he would not be attacked by the super soldier before him. His face brightened, causing Steve to notice just how dark it had seemed moments ago.

“I’m here with a mail delivery, Captain Rogers. Someone sent you a care package.”

Now Steve was well and truly confused. There was no one left to send him a package, at least no one back home. The only two people that mattered were both deployed in places the army refused to tell him. Steve opened his mouth to respond but how could he tell this young man he had no one? That this must be a mistake? The only way for him to get a package would have been from a ghost.

“Are you sure? There isn’t any—“

Before Steve could finish his sentence, Private Martin was pulling a box out of his own pack and thrusting it at Steve. The name on the box, in a nearly illegible scrawl, read “Steven Christopher Rogers, Capt. c/o US Army” It wasn’t handwriting he recognized, but only so many people would know his full name. Steve’s face would have gone white had he not been surprised enough times to last a lifetime.

Steve slowly, delicately, took the box from Martin’s outstretched hands. He felt if he touched it too quickly or roughly it would shatter. Steve turned the box over in his hands, examining every inch of it in search of a clue as to its sender. His investigation was silent. Private Martin stood stock still not wanting to disturb him but desperately hoping to find out what was in the box.

An address in the upper corner caught his eye. It was smudged, but he could make out that the street was East Houston.

The Lower East Side? The name shook a memory loose from the annals of his brain. Bucky, Mrs. Barnes, and himself—walking along slowly, examining the delis and knisheries that lined the street. The smell of smoked fish and fresh bagels filled his nose, and he could almost hear the chatter that floated out the doors and onto the street that day.

Steve pulled a Pen knife from his pack faster than Private Martin could blink and offer him one. He still held the box with care, but the knife tore through the tape and wrapping unapologetically. Steve tossed the knife onto the cot next to him and slowly opened the box flaps. What he saw defied any expectations he may have had.

A letter, old personal items, and perhaps something he had lost were some of the guesses that ran through Steve’s mind. What sat in front of him, however, wrapped in butcher paper and twine, appeared to be a large portion of deli meat.

Confused, Steve looked at Private Martin. “You sure this box was for me?” Steve’s brow wrinkled as the mental math wound his brain into knots.

“Yes, sir. Not many folks know you’re stationed here, so they were pretty sure this package was yours.” Private Martin stumbled through his explanation, trying to pretend that he understood completely why Captain America had been sent a large serving of salami.

Steve sighed and took the wrapped parcel out of its box. As he unwrapped the layers of butcher paper that held it in place, it became clearer that someone sent Steve a sizeable dried salami. Not just someone though, someone who had to know Steve’s full name. He sighed and examined the salami in his hands.

Private Martin and Steve stared at the deli meat for a few moments, both bewildered. Steve then found a small card had wedged itself between the papers at the bottom of the box. Gingerly, he untangled it from the remnants of paper so it wouldn’t tear. On one side, it read in large red letters, “SEND A SALAMI TO YOUR BOY IN THE ARMY!” Steve tried to stifle a chuckle; just because he was a gentleman didn’t mean his sense of humor didn’t have some edges. He flipped the card over, and his wish for a signed note had been answered.

In small, messy chicken scratch, Steve could read, “You gotta start eating more if you’re gonna beat those bastards. -Buck”

A loud, raspy laugh echoed through the room. It sounded dusty from lack of use, unfamiliar. Steve’s eyes were bright and he clapped a hand over his mouth. Private Martin watched him, surprised that the canon of a laugh came from the serious man in front of him. Now that Steve had begun laughing, he couldn’t stop. Small chuckles and loud laughs bubbled out of his mouth as his shoulders shook and his eyes teared.

After a few minutes, his shoulders went still and the joyous noise in the room ceased. Steve Rogers was once again Captain America, the serious hero rather than the joyful young man. Internally, he was comforted that Bucky’s package meant that both he and Peggy were safe— there was no other person who could have given Buck his location, and Katz’s could only be found in Manhattan. He smiled to himself for a moment, rereading Bucky’s note, and then looked up at Martin.

“Thank you.”

“Oh, I didn’t do anything really; I just deliver the mail.”

“But you did. I haven’t laughed that hard in months, and you helped give me that. So thank you.”

Private Martin stared at Steve, both bewildered and awestruck. This was the Captain America everyone talked about? The one they were intimidated by? He couldn’t believe it. There must have been something he missed, or that they missed. They were clearly wrong. Martin blinked and stuck out his hand.

“Alright then,” he shrugged, “You’re welcome, Captain Rogers.”

Steve smiled again and took Martin’s hand in a firm but friendly handshake.

“Please, call me Steve.”

**Author's Note:**

> You made it! This is the first fic I've shared publicly in years, so thank you for reading.
> 
> You can come yell at me on tumblr where I'm ginandasphodel, or on twitter where I'm @hurricanegracie. Always down to make new internet friends, also always down to cry about sweet baby Steve Rogers.


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